Step Up To Huge 12-inch Brakes & Keep Your 15-inch Wheels!

We all love the shorter, safer stopping distances provided by disc brakes. That’s why swap kits for drum brake-equipped old cars are so popular. Adding copious amounts of horsepower makes the need for a brake upgrade that much more critical. Our 1965 Dodge Coronet will be receiving an 825hp Street Hemi, which is more than double what it came with from the factory. This B-Body will need serious braking power to stop! Moving up to big disc brakes usually means bigger, more expensive wheels to clear the calipers, but Wilwood recently redesigned their DynaLite caliper package to fit inside most 15-inch wheels. This opens up a whole new world for enthusiasts who want to keep that stock, period-correct appearance.

There’s no way any B-Body with 4-wheel 10-inch drum brakes can safely slow down in an emergency braking situation surrounded by today’s cars. In today’s world, the latest run-of-the-mill vehicle has brakes that’ll stop with a 60 to 0 mph deceleration average of 120 to 130 feet. Also there’s no scary brake fade when making multiple high-speed stops with today’s 4-wheel disc brake equipped vehicles. Try testing 4-wheel, 10-inch drum brakes on an old B-body and you’ll likely see 200, 250 and over 300 feet by the third attempt due to drum brake fade. Then there’s the possibility of pulling problems to the left or right and swerving caused from inherent drum brake issues. Believe us, back in the day we’ve had close calls when the roads weren’t so crowded with other vehicles having an enormous braking advantage. Knowing all that, how could anyone chance driving their classic with drum brakes in today’s world of brake happy drivers who don’t have a clue or a care about our old Mopar’s stock drum braking ability.

When we were contemplating the available disc brake conversion packages for our B-body, most of the 11-inch kits mandated a spindle change and 15-inch wheels. Many disc brake kits feature components made overseas, plus we’ve heard of fitment issues. In addition, we noticed most of the 12- and 13-inch kits required 17-inch or larger wheels. Weighing our options, we decided on Wilwood’s new Dynalite 12.19-inch disc brake conversion kit. We appreciate the fact Wilwood’s 12.19-inch kit will work with most 15-inch wheels and the factory drum brake spindles. So yes, you can have big brake performance without the oversized wheels that often don’t look right on vintage cars. An added bonus is the components in the Wilwood disc brake conversion kit are manufactured in the USA. Priced at under a 1,000 bucks with the optional drilled, slotted and E-coated rotors, it’s quite a bargain when compared to other similarly equipped 11-inch kits that will not provide the stopping force of the larger 12.19-inch brakes.

It’s worth noting Wilwood offers a rear disc brake 12.19-inch DynaLite kit with or without a parking brake option that still allows the use of most 15-inch wheels. We’re planning a rearend swap for our Coronet, replacing the stock 8 3/4 with a B-body Dana 60 unit, so you know what we’re thinking. In recent years we built and drove a project car using the Wilwood 11-inch 4-wheel disc brake system. It showed us safe, fade-free panic stops at highway and 130 mph trap speeds. Wilwood’s 12.19-inch stoppers will be that much better and safer for our B-body.

Next time we’ll be replacing the stock single line, drum brake master with Wilwood’s latest dual-line, 4-wheel disc brake master cylinder. For now check out the well-fitting, easy bolt-on, big front disc brake installation. Now we can begin shopping for a set of cool-looking, vintage, 15-inch wheels.

Interested in Wilwood’s DynaLite kit for A-Body Mopars? Check out the story here!

The wimpy 10-inch drums have to go! We can run a 15-inch wheel and still have big brakes with Wilwood’s 12.19-inch Dynalite package.Here’s the bulk of Wilwood’s 12.19-inch DynaLite front disc brake kit (part No. 140-9828-D, $937.99 with slotted, drilled, E-coated rotors and $825.99 without). The billet aluminum hub assembly and rotor adapter are at the top. The center shows the black anodized DynaLite caliper featuring four stainless pistons and street/strip brake pads. At the bottom are the drilled, slotted, E-coated rotors which resist heat build-up better than undrilled, un-slotted rotors.We removed the drums and backing plates during our previous suspension rehab story http://www.hotrod.com/articles/mopar-front-suspension-rehab-get-handling-stock-looks/. The spindle was cleaned-up and inspected to insure it was safe to use for the disc brake conversion.Removing the drum’s backing plate is as simple as loosening the four bolts holding it to the spindle and lower ball joint. The wheel cylinder hose is best disconnected where the hose connects to the hard line at the frame rail bracket.The first step is installing the Wilwood caliper mounting bracket to the spindle and lower ball joint. The kit provides four new bolts and nuts for the bracket. We elected to use three of the four original bolts and the kit’s tapered head bolt. The bottom 5/8-inch bolts are torqued to 140 lb-ft while the top 7/16-inch bolts receive 47 lb-ft.The five new wheel studs are screwed into the new Wilwood billet aluminum hub. The studs receive 77 lb-ft of torque. The outermost hole pattern is for the common 5 x 4.50-inch bolt pattern used on all B- and E-Bodies. The inside bolt pattern is the small 5 x 4.00-inch for the ’63 to ’72 A-Body.Wilwood’s kit includes new bearings. The bearings’ races are preinstalled in the hubs. We packed the inner and outer bearings with high-temp disc brake bearing grease. The greased inner bearings were placed into the backside of the hubs. A small piece of a 2 x 4-inch wood with a mallet was used to carefully and evenly install the inner bearing seal.Orient the rotor and rotor adapter as per Wilwood’s instuctions before bolting them together. Also be sure the rotor’s arrow is facing the forward direction of rotation for the side of the car on which they are installed.Wilwood recommends red thread locker be applied to the threads. Here the rotor and rotor adapter are attached while receiving 25 lb-ft in an alternating sequence.Red thread locker is applied to the hub bolt threads. The backside of the hub is mounted to the adapter/rotor assembly. The bolts are torqued to 55 lb-ft using an alternating sequence. Be sure to use a high-quality American-made Torx-type T-45 socket. If not, you may break a few poor-quality sockets like we did.We lightly coated the spindle bearing surfaces with the same green Lucas high-temp disc brake bearing grease we used to pack the bearings.Here we’re holding the outer bearing in place while carefully placing the hub/rotor assembly onto the spindle. This helps protect the hub and its bearing races from possible damage.We lightly secured the supplied spindle/bearing washer and the original adjusting nut hand tight. Next, the hub/rotor assembly was rotated forward and reverse a few times before and after applying roughly 15 to 20 lb-ft of torque. We backed-off the nut until hand tight and again rotated the rotor few times. Finally, we torqued the nut to only 3-5 lb-ft.The wheel bearing’s adjusting nut was secured with a new cotter pin going through the spindle and nut locking device. Wilwood’s beautiful dust cap is screwed onto the hub only hand tight. Friction created by the o-ring on the dust cap keeps it from loosening.To mount the caliper, start out by using two .063-inch washers on each of the two mounting bolts. Notice the two washers between the caliper and its bracket. Wilwood recommends this as a starting point to align and center the caliper over the rotor. Snug the two caliper bolts to roughly 10 lb-ft of torque.Instead of eyeball aligning to correct the centering of the caliper over the rotor, we used feeler gauge thickness. We measured the gap on each side of the rotor between each pad. The inside measured roughly .015-inch wider than the outside gap. We corrected the centering of the caliper by using a thinner shim (.032-inch) replacing the .063 washer.With the caliper correctly centered over the rotor we were able to torque the two caliper mounting bolts to 40 lb-ft. Be sure to use the same amount of shims/washers on the two caliper mounting bolts. On our B-Body, the right caliper was centered with the two .063-inch washers on each caliper mounting bolt.Though technically an option, Wilwood’s stainless steel Flexline kit is a necessity. Our application used part No. 220-8307, $66.61. Be sure to carefully route the lines to prevent contact with the moving suspension, steering, and wheel components. Wilwood’s braided brake line kit includes all the parts needed to connect to the stock chassis brake lines. In the next story, we’ll install Wilwood’s new master cylinder with new hard brake lines from Inline Tube.

Wheel-to-caliper clearance was checked using a steel 1980s cop car wheel and an all-aluminum American Racing Vintage 500, both 15×7-inch with a 4.00-inch backspacing. They fit nicely with more than the recommended .080-inch caliper clearance. Wilwood’s diagram suggests a wheel with an inside barrel diameter size of at least 14.120-inch.

Next we tried a 15×7-inch Rallye wheel. Unfortunately it was rubbing the outer edge of the caliper. We know both the 14- and 15-inch Rallye wheels use the same size center section, most likely causing the fitment issue.Now you can have modern stopping power while rolling out on vintage 15-inch wheels. Having installed Wilwood disc brake conversion kits on other classic muscle machines, fitment and braking performance is top shelf. Once our Hemi Coronet is on the road with today’s cars, we’ll be driving fearlessly and with brake confidence.

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